slimple v0.6.9

Slimple NodeJS Framework

A slim and simple nodejs framework.

The idea of Slimple is to make it easy for you to write service oriented nodejs web applications.

Installation

$ npm install slimple

As it doesn't come with convenient building tools, following step has to be done manually to get your first Slimple app running:

copy the content of  
https://github.com/0x1d/slimple/tree/master/skeleton   
to your project root folder

Config

Change the path in the file config/app.js

Mongoose Support

If you want to add mongoose support to your project, perform following steps:

$ npm install mongoose  

• add mongoose dependency to the package.json of your project
• open /config/db.js
• set property "active" to true
• set the connectionString to your db

Caution: at the moment, only mongoose 3.5.8 is supported

Run the app

You don't have to worry about the apps.js at the moment.
If you're familiar with JS you know what you can do with it.

$ node app

Features

• REST services
• MongoDB support
• Server side events
• Simple HTTP server

Examples

By installing the skeleton app, you already get some examples of how to write services, mongoose schemas and events.
Just have a look at the corresponding folders, you will see that it is really easy.

Services

By default, the services are located in the /services folder.
By adding subfolders, you create the path to your REST service:

$ mkdir /services/test  

Now create a file (the name doesn't matter) and add the basic service structure:

module.exports = {
    resource: '/echo(/:what)',
    GET: function(ctx, http){
        http.reply(http.data.what);
    }
};

This service will be available through this URL: /test/echo
You can nest folders as much as you like, but keep in mind that each folder will be added to the resource path.
You also create other methods like POST, DELETE or PUT.
As you can see, the service method(s) need following parameters:

• ctx - the application context where events and schemas are available
• http - request, response and data wrapper

http.reply is a convenient method to send back data to the client. It will be stringified automatically if it is a JSON object.

The resource defined here is a URL pattern which will be resolved by WayJS.
For further informations about what URL patterns are possible, have a look at the WayJS documentation.

Error handling

If you like to return some http errors, just throw an error object in your service:

throw { status: 500, message : new Error("that sucks").stack};

Session handling

Accessing session attributes within a service is quite simple:

var sessionId = http.session.uid();
var attribute = http.session.get('attribute');
http.session.set('attribute', attribute);

Mongoose

Because Slimple uses the mongoose module, you can take a look at the mongoose documentation about what is possible.
To use mongoose schemas in Slimple, you can simply place your schema below the /schemas folder.

module.exports = {
    name: 'BlogPost',
    schema: {
        author  : { type: "String", required: true},
        title   : { type: "String", required: true},
        body    : { type: "String", required: true},
        date    : { type: "Date", default: new Date() }
    }
};

It's quite easy to use this schema in a service now:

var model = ctx.db.model('BlogPost);

You don't have to worry about creating the schema and connecting to the database, Slimple will do that for you.

Events

Similar thing for server side events.
Just put your event code below the /events folder.

module.exports = {
  name: 'echoEvent',
  invoke: function(ctx, data){
      ctx.log.trace(data);
  }
};

And fire the event (for example) in your service:

ctx.event.emit("echoEvent", "hello event");

Logging

Convenient logging stuff is possible with

ctx.log.trace(msg)
ctx.log.debug(msg)
ctx.log.info(msg)
ctx.log.error(msg)
ctx.log.fatal(msg)

Application context

Documentation on this topic will follow soon.